A beta for the much anticipated World in Conflict is being released, to secure yourself a key you can get one from Ausgamers, the beta download is due to be released shortly. Want to play in the beta for one of the most anticipated RTS games of the year? Well, bad luck. You can't. You're just not good enough. Until now! Thanks to Vivendi, we've got a phat wad of beta keys to give out so you can dive into the closed beta and check out what all the fuss is about. You can join the ranks of the elite; you'll become more attractive to members of the opposite sex (who are we kidding - we can write 'women' here and it'll be accurate for most gamers), and many, many other great things will happen.

It seems that more AMD price cuts are coming up, thanks Shawn. The AMD and Intel price battle has been raging on for nearly two years now, accelerated further by the sweeping cuts made by Intel that are coming due. The limbo-like dance seemed to be hitting an all-time low, with the ability to buy an AMD X2 6000+ for a mere $229. Well, it just got better - try $169.

HardcoreWare have posted crash course in modern CPU architecture. After hearing people ask "what is the difference between AMD and Intel" a few too many times, and people still bringing up names like "Pentium", we decided to write a small crash-course on modern CPU architecture. We also look at why the latest trends in these architectures may be causing people to move on from hobbies like overclocking and tweaking. Instead, stuff just seems to work better now, without much input from the user.

Xbitlabs have compared DDR2 to DDR3 to find out which is more suitable for todays computer systems. Platforms with DDR3 SDRAM support are already available in the market. So, it is high time we performed a comparative test session of DDR3 SDRAM against DDR2 SDRAM. The main goal of our today’s investigation is to find out what memory technology is more suitable for today’s computer systems, and what prospects each of them has ahead.

Microsoft are working on moving the Xbox 360s onto a 65nm process codenamed Falcon, thanks Craig. Falcon is the name for the latest internal electronics in the Xbox 360. It will have an IBM microprocessor and an AMD/ATI graphics chip that are manufactured in a 65-nanometer production process. These are cost-reduced chips that do the same thing as their 90-nanometer predecessors, but they’re smaller.

Bit-Tech have posted a guide to engraving your case. I can only say that there are thousands of small tricks and techniques that you can use to perfect your design, but I've tried to get in all the basic things that you need to think about in this guide. Engraving is great fun and it can take your mods to a whole new level. Its easy to get started and if you only take it slow and don't rush your work, you will get good results.

USA Today leaked a shot of Killzone 2 at it's pre alpha stage, thanks Beta. Now it's hoping this futuristic first-person shooter will propel sales of PlayStation 3. The action takes you and your squad of commanders to the planet Helghan to defeat the mutated human Helghast race, but it's not just straight-ahead combat. "The Helghast are able to harness the raw power of the weather against you," Sony's Ron Eagle says. "It makes for some unique game play." Designed to show off the PlayStation 3's capabilities, the game "will be a hardware mover," he says.

John spotted this rather unusual Ebay auction. Your bid here is for the entire lot of laptop computers and laptop parts shown in the photos below. (Mr. Wu, tools, and other items laying around are not included in auction.) Note: All are proudly SMASHED to pieces by Mr. Wu.

BFM spotted some videos (part 1 here and part 2 here) of a Dutch consumer information program testing if Xbox 360s will scratch discs under normal usage circumstances.

Klif sent in this interesting French ad, it might take you a bit of time to get what the whole thing is on about but it is a pretty clever concept.